Friday, 28 March 2014

In the past, we've contributed to other people's crowdsourcing. We decided to give it a go ourselves. Often, on social media, the term PLN (Personal/Professional Learning Network) is used. What is often not mentioned is that on Twitter, someone had two PLNs: The PLN they follow and get ideas from in their feed and the PLN they are followed by and can therefore ask for help. The two PLNs are very likely to be different!

This crowdsourcing focuses on those a Twitter user can ask for help. Your followers. In my classroom, we were preparing for some project based learning around the topic of Space. I decided the groups in my class would all produce a video, that could then be attached to a photo using Augmented Reality and share it with the world. I had some ideas, but wanted more...

I Tweeted it a couple of times and got responses. All of these responses were valuable and offered to the class as options for their video outcome. That document can now be kept and also shared with others.

Tweet and Tweet often. Direct it at users you know will have ideas. Ask / hope for ReTweets. Share it on other social media too. Send it to friends, colleagues or someone in a certain sector of work. If people add, that's great. If someone has no ideas or can't contribute, nothing's lost. Of course, this does rely on having numerous followers or others choosing to share it further. Ensure you're direct about what you want to find out. It'll allow more space than a Tweet allows for someone to share an idea.

Having a go? Let us know, we'll respond and, you never know, we may even help to spread the word...

Sunday, 16 March 2014

So, the curriculum's changing. Lots has been said, lots has been discussed. Some like; others don't like. Maybe you're a teacher very able when it comes to computational thinking, however you may be less au fait with this aspect of primary education.

We've both got an interest in computing. In recent years, we've run a Code Club and also ensured the coverage of computing in our junior school.

Our latest development is to begin creating our own games and activities in Scratch to use in our classrooms and others across the school. Creating the resources yourself means they can the tailored to your own needs. Also, if you've got to teach and support children in computational thinking, it's a good idea to develop your own skills. Whilst developing those skills, create something that's useful to you!

We're using Scratch because it's a reasonably easy place to start, projects and easily shared online and others can 'remix' the project to adapt it for their needs or wants. Other languages can of course be used too.

Stasy: Silently, I crept down the stairs- bare feet freezing cold on the hard,
stony floor... My heavy breathing totally drowned out every other
sound,except the strange, banging thump from above, I was petrified...